In the good light from overhead, she looked without speaking at the small and slightly irregular golden disc. He took it into his own hand. He pulled the purse fully open and let the other coins fall onto the table. “Where did you get these?” he asked, barely trusting his voice.
“They must have belonged to one of the men you killed,” she answered in a voice as nervous as he felt. “We never did check their pockets. Do you recognise them?” Not answering, he turned all the coins over so they were upright. Poking with his right forefinger, he moved them into a rectangle of five by four.
“Can you tell me anything about those men who were trying to kill you?” As he’d expected, Jennifer shook her head. She’d never seen them before, she repeated. All she could say was that they weren’t connected with the authorities, or probably with Radleigh—and he could have said that himself. He waited for her to fall silent and look again at the elaborate, flowing script on each of the coins. “Just one of them, and it might mean nothing,” he said. “Gold coins circulate into all manner of places, and I doubt your father ran the only contraband network with France. But look at the number of them, and they’re all fresh-minted.” With a hand that trembled, he picked one up again and looked at the imperfection on one of the characters. He looked at the others. “They were struck from the same die.” Not speaking, Jennifer looked down at the pattern of gold on the table. “These are golden dinars,” he explained, “of Arp Arslan, who hasn’t been Caliph for a year yet. My uncle and I set out as soon as the first reports of your appearance came to us. It seems that the Turks got here first.”
A new thought came to mind. “Those men who were killing themselves at the big demonstration—I don’t think I’ve told you, they were speaking the Arabic that’s now spoken in Baghdad. It’s something I passively accepted at the time. But, it doesn’t now strike me as realistic that Arabic should have remained unchanged for nearly a thousand years. What do you suppose they were doing there? And can you think of any reason why the Caliph’s agents should be trying to kill you?”
Michael listened to the wild screaming of a woman on the screen outside. It was followed by shouts of approval from the crowd that still hadn’t moved away. Then there was a beating of drums and a repetition of the twanging music. He put the noise out of mind. If only it could have been replaced by a clear understanding of what role a God who might actually exist had set for him in this genuine performance.
Chapter Twenty Eight
The priest opened the door a little wider. “Don’t you know what time it is?” He squinted and tried to look past her into the gloom of the vicarage front garden. Jennifer stood back a little, to let him see that she was alone. “Stay here,” she’d told Michael after much quiet but angry argument out in the street. She’d looked at the darkened and very unexpected Church of All the Saints—it looked more Greek Revival than Greek Orthodox. She’d turned her attention to what might, when it was built, have been a semi-rural home for the priest given that particular living. “No!” she’d finally insisted after more arguing. “If there is anyone lying in wait, he’ll be after you, not me. Let me go and check things out. The worst anyone there will do is send me away.” Michael had looked as if he might strike her, he was so angry. But every argument he’d made about his “duty” was now magnified by thoughts of what the Turks might be about in England. That, plus the fact that they were standing outside the church, had shut him up long enough for her to get her way.
So, here she was by herself, outside the door of the vicarage not long before midnight. “I am in search of spiritual comfort,” she said, putting into her voice the sort of tone she’d heard the night before in Oxford Street. She gave a puzzled look at the priest, then at the building. “But I was given to understand this would be an Anglican church.”
The door opened wider, and Jennifer blinked in the light of a dozen candles from the hall table. “And an Anglican church it formerly was,” the priest said with a contortion of his bearded mouth that might have been an attempted smile. “The first Orthodox prayers were said here in 1948. It was raised to the status of a cathedral in 1991. That was by Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira and Great Britain. I am Father Athanasios, and have been Archimandrite here since 2016.” He stopped and looked into her face. He sighed and took a step backward. “Do come in, my daughter,” he said in the tone of one who gives way to the inevitable.
Jennifer was wondering yet again if this had been entirely the best plan of action. But it was too late to pull back now. She tried for a weak smile at Father Athanasios. Though he looked like all the other scowling, black-robed clerics she’d seen in Greece, his foreign lilt was overlain by a North London accent. She got out her smile and thought of the cosh that she’d been bullied into carrying. It was in the breast pocket of her dry but still smelly overcoat. All she had to do was reach inside. What she’d manage to do with it if the priest turned nasty was another matter.
“But come in, my daughter,” he muttered with a reluctant show of duty. “The March nights are very chill.”
“But are these the March nights, or the June?” she asked, looking closely into the bearded face. He blinked and seemed ready to block her entry. But she was already stepping forward. He sighed again and stood back so she could walk past him into the entrance hall.
“And who are you?” a man asked from behind the glow of the candles. He came forward. Tall, bald, about fifty, he gave her a keen glance, before hurrying forward to look into the darkness outside the vicarage.
Jennifer smiled nervously back at him once he’d shut the door and was looking again in her direction. “What I have is for a man of God alone,” she said with simple piety. She staggered and seemed about to collapse. One look at the man’s face, and she barely needed to act. Who was he? she thought with rising panic. The priest got a chair under her just in time. She put her hand up to her eyes and managed with an ease that surprised her to bring out a few tears. She hadn’t even needed to think of her parents.
“And, so, my child, the young man has declined to stand by you in your moment of need?” Father Athanasios looked as if he’d believed her story. And why not? There was nothing inherently unlikely about it. Jennifer took a sip of herbal tea and played for time with another fit of the sobs. She knew the bald man was standing outside the door—the priest’s own surreptitious glances leftward had made that much clear. Who he was she couldn’t say, but his mere presence confirmed her belief that there could be no help for Michael from the Greek community. Her best bet was to let the priest explain the Orthodox view of abortion and send her on her way. She waited for him to go over to a bookshelf and take down a big volume. She allowed herself a glance at the clock. She’d been here an hour already. If she didn’t make her excuses soon, who could say what Michael would do?
She got up and remembered to sway slightly. “The hour is late, Father. My parents will be worried if I don’t get home.” Keeping her movements slow and tired, she reached for the coat she’d thrown over a chair.
The door swung open. “Not so fast, little girl!” The bald man walked into the room. He pinched the candle out and hurried across to the window. He looked silently out before turning back to her and the priest. “I think we’ve heard quite enough of your little sob story.” Time to make a run for it—only Jennifer was no more capable of running away than of going for her cosh. With what seemed an iron hand closing about her chest, she missed what the bald man said next. But his grinning face was lit up by the glow of a mobile telephone. He held it menacingly aloft and pressed a series of buttons. It was answered almost at once. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got him, Prime Minister,” he said. He listened. “The driver said he’d already been got at by Hooper’s people. But I didn’t see any of them on the way here.” Another pause, and then a slight gritting of teeth. “I did write the address down for you. However, it’s the….” He swore and looked at the display. “Have you a working landline in this place?” he asked the priest.